This May 2015 photo provided by Explore.org shows walruses on a beach on Round Island, Alaska. (explore.org via AP)

(Newser)
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For a long time, scientists wondered why Vikings settled in Greenland as farmers, since livestock doesn't thrive there and the growing season is truncated, notes Hakai Magazine. But while speculation as to why they eventually abandoned the island territory range from climate change to soil erosion, researchers now think there may be another reason: They could no longer sell the ivory they culled from walruses there. A new study published in the World Archaeology journal finds that walrus hunting may have been the Vikings' main source of income, not farming, with the Norse seafarers taking advantage of Europe's penchant for luxury goods during the Middle Ages. But while the ivory trade may have been lucrative—one ancient document mentioned by Hakai says a load of ivory equal to more than 500 tusks would reap a Viking enough to pay his taxes to the Norwegian king for six years—it certainly didn't sound easy.

A source cited by the magazine notes one expedition that took 15 days of rowing from a Viking settlement to Greenland's Disko Bay, where walruses proliferated. They would then have to row back with up to 160 severed walrus heads in the boat—it was apparently easier to remove the tusks after the heads had rotted for a few weeks. What apparently led to the eventual downfall of the trade: a changing European economy in the High Medieval period between the 11th and 13th centuries, with the focus moved to bulk goods like fish and wool instead of prestige goods like furs, hides, and ivory. (An Alaskan duo was busted a few years ago for trafficking walrus tusks and polar bear hides.)

Geological and fossil evidence all over the world supports climate change as the reason the Vikings abandoned Greenland--the weather got colder due to a now-understood predictable phase in the Milankovitch cycle. The change in weather patterns is supported by various Viking Sagas. To say otherwise is nothing more than revisionist "history" by morally bankrupt academics seeking politically funded research grant money.

iq145

Jul 30, 2015 8:50 PM CDT

The Faroe islands are basically a few wet little rocks in the middle of the ocean that was colonized by actual VIKINGS (it's true) and the people there today are their direct descendants, never having learned morality or compassion! They play an annual "game" they call Grindadráp (a.k.a. The Grind) in which young men of the villages kill as many pilot whale dolphins as they can by slashing them using a handknife after grabbing them through their blowhole with hooks. It's to prove their "passage into manhood". See for yourselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjNeSpghf30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRgYA6fN4Iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5nb3VsMRbc These whale killers are genuine vikings! Bully neanderthals who are not killing the helpless whales for science or for food. Sign the petition and type a message. Tell these scumbags what you think of them: Here's the link to the anti-whaling petition: http://theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/ars/petition/FaroeIslandWhaleSlaughter